(gentle music) - When I was nine years old, some of the early balloonists in the area would fly over our house.

And we wanted to go chase it one day, and my parents turned dinner off on the stove, took us to chase the balloon.

We were there when they landed a couple times doing that.

The local pilot said, "Hey, you seem to be getting here faster than my normal crew.

You must be local.

Would you like to get involved and come out and crew for us?"

Crewed for that local balloonist for years.

They got out of the sport of ballooning, and we bought our own balloons and continued flying as often as we can.

(upbeat music) If you haven't been ballooning in a while, you should absolutely do it again.

I guarantee it'll be different than the first time.

I'm Tony Saxton, pilot and part owner of Endless Mountains Hot Air Balloons in northeastern central Pennsylvania.

We've been flying hot air balloons for about 30 years, and one of the biggest things is sharing our love of the sport and ballooning with our passengers and people around the community.

Ballooning is a a high adrenaline activity.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some people.

It's a way of flying, they almost feel sometimes like a bird getting ready to land on top of a tree.

Because we're literally taking off from the ground; flying over the treetops; ascending to an altitude of a couple thousand feet.

You get to see the big broad picture of the area, and very often we'll see the Catskill Mountains and Elk Mountain Ski Resort just to the north of here.

And then we try to fly a little bit lower so they get to see the livestock, they get to see the wildlife and the stone walls going through the woods in the area.

It's just something that every time it's different (metal rattling) (air blasting) - [Crew Member] Marshmallows.

Woo!

(laughing) - That's just what we would normally do to check our wind direction and speed above the ground of different altitudes and sometimes we look at a compass.

- You guys ready?

- [All] Yeah.

- My ground crew are all volunteers.

They're from all over the area.

Northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

We even have crew when we travel to balloon festivals out of state that are local crew to that area that come out and help us.

They are responsible for helping me prepare the balloon for flight, helping unload trailer, rigging the balloon, and attaching all the components together.

They're there through the inflation process.

They follow us to where we land because we go with the wind so the balloon flights one direction, and then once we land they help us deflate the balloon take it all apart and put it back in the trailer and prep it for next time.

- [Crew Member] Okay, somebody get on that crown line.

(inspiring music) - My ground crew has become an extended family and we all like being together.

We hang out together even when we're not ballooning.

It's a lot of fun and gives you something to do outside and something you may not have ever done before.

Help inflate a balloon and take a balloon down.

- I'm Vivian and I'm a student hot air balloon pilot.

- I'm Melanie and I'm also a student pilot (laughing) - Tony took me on as a student pilot and I'm actually a private pilot for airplanes and fixed wing aircraft and I really got involved in helping out with crew and on the balloons and found that it was an interesting new type of flight that I like.

- I've trained, I think maybe five or six pilots through the year.

The good thing about it is you make new friends and you have crew while they're learning how to fly.

They go on and buy their own balloons sometimes and run their own business, but I don't call it competition.

I call it a friendship and we all work together because we're such a small community.

(uplifting music) Mother nature pretty much dictates where we're going to travel.

We travel in the same direction and speed as the wind.

So if the wind's blowing 10 miles an hour we're traveling at 10 miles an hour.

Part of the love of ballooning is the unknown of not knowing where exactly you'll end up.

(spirited music)